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"It's not my fault your distracted by my shoulders sir"
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I ride back to school once I grab some lunch and quickly go to rehearsals. Only rehearsals did not go to plan at all.
"Shall I hear more, or shall I speak-- Steve recites before a horseshoe comes out of nowhere and hits Steve on the head.
"Steve!" I yell as he groans and falls over making me quickly rush over and see what hit him.
"Hey! Who did that?" Steve yells.
I lean over and see a horseshoe on the ground making me even more confused. A hand quickly grabs it, who I realise was Jim—before he and Toby run away.
I stand there confused as everyone starts fussing over Steve's head. I quickly walk over to Claire and we both share a knowing look before quickly running after Toby and Jim.
We both look around the locker bay and catch sight of Jim and Toby, but before we can interrogate them Mr Strickler interrupts.
"I don't believe that's appropriate school attire." Mr Strickler says while looking at our clothes, making us both raise an eyebrow.
I look down to my shirt and realise he was referring to my top that had apparently fallen off my shoulder a bit from running.
"It's not my fault your distracted by my shoulders sir" I say with a sarcastic smile.
He stares at me with wide eyes before opening and closing his mouth and then just deciding to walk away.
"Damn, ruthless" Claire says as she gives me a high five.
We watch as Jim and Toby seem to fight over a horseshoe for a reason completely unknown. Why is it those two always seem to be doing something completely stupid.
I watch the horseshoe fall from their hands—landing on the ground right in front of Claire and I. Claire quickly leans down, grabbing the horseshoe and handing it to Mr Strickler who has walked over to us.
"Here you go, Mr. Strickler. Here's your horseshoe back." She says with a smile, assuming that it's his for some weird reason.
"Thank you, Ms. Nunez, but that belongs to Mr. Lake." Mr Strickler says as Claire hands it to Jim with a questionable look on her face.
"Wow Jim, I didn't know you had a horse" I say teasingly, making him nervously chuckle and rub his neck, Mr Strickler mocking him from beside him.
"Take care of your back, Young Atlas. Such is the danger of carrying the world on one's shoulders." Mr Strickler says before walking away, leaving me and Claire extremely confused.
"Very suspicious" Toby says.
"Suspicious?" I question, making Jim jump, not realising I had moved to stand next to him.
"Y/n" Jim says nervously making me raise an eyebrow.
"Still here" I chuckle as Claire and Toby smirk at each other.
"Uh, what's up?" He asks while shifting his feet around.
"You're still going to my house right?" I question making Claire perk up.
"Wait Jim's going to you're house? Didn't you say you'd babysit my brother?" Claire asks with a raised eyebrow making my eyes widen.
"Oh god I completely forgot about that, god I'm sorry Jim" I say with a sad look.
"I don't mind if you babysit at the same time, I could even help" Jim says with a small shrug of his shoulders.
He really didn't want to cancel.
"Really? You wouldn't mind?" I say with a smile.
"No! Not at all! It'll be fun!" He says with a small chuckle.
"Oh thank god! I'll see you then" I say and quickly side hug him and fist bump Toby, before leaving with Claire.
"You hugged him" Claire said with a wide smile.
"It was more like a side hug" I say with a shrug of my shoulders.
"You definitely like him Y/n, you can't even make excuses anymore!" She says while waving her arms around.
"Fine...maybe I like him..." I mumble to Claire making her squeal and start dancing around me.
She grabs my hands and twirls me around making us laugh.
"Yes! You finally admitted it!" Claire says with a sigh of relief.
"Oh shut up! Let's just go to class" I say grumpily, as I grab her arm and pull her to class with Claire giggling the whole way.
School went by slowly, especially with Claire talking non stop from next to me about topics we could talk about if Jim and I get awkward.
Which we will. It's bound to happen. We're two awkward people who are now hanging out together.
Claire's parents gave me a lift home, saying it's the least they could do since I'm babysitting for them—even though they're also paying me but I wasn't complaining.
"Okay, this is everything you need" Claire says as she dumps tons of baby stuff in my family room making me nervously look at all of it.
"Baby bottle, food, diapers, toys, clothes, dummies, healthcare kit, medical supplies, my parents phone number is here, and Enrique's Baby-cot" Claire says quickly and handing me a slip of paper with her parents numbers on it.
"Call if you need anything! And his favourite show is that weird one with talking fruits!" Claire says before running out of the house and jumping in the car with her parents, before zooming off.
"Why do I feel like they just dumped you here and are never coming back" I say as I turn around to see Enrique playing with his toys giggling.
Awww. He's kind of cute.
"Maybe they're taking pages out of my dads book" I say to him.
I quietly giggle to myself at my joke.
"I'm so funny" I say and quickly realise I'm talking to a baby. "And I'm so sad"
I sigh and sit down on the ground next to the baby.
"I have forty minutes before Jim gets here, what should we do?" I ask Enrique, before quickly realising he can't respond.
He babbles to me making me smile.
"Guacamole it is" I say before hurrying to the kitchen and start preparing a delicious snack using my amazing cooking skills.
It ended up being harder then I thought and I apparently suck at cutting up things and sliced my hand a few times—only small cuts obviously.
I quickly walk over to the cabinet with medical supplies and grab some barbie bandages and stick them on my hand.
By the time I finished cooking, I hear a knock on the door making me quickly perk up.
Jim is here.
I run to the mirror—making sure I don't look hideous—before making my way to the door and opening it to find a nervous looking Jim.
That boy is always nervous.
"Jimbo! So glad you could make it" I say with a wide smile which he returns.
"Nice, um Casa" He says nervously which makes me smile even wider.
"Thanks. Make yourself at home, I'm just making a little snack using my amazing cooking skills" I say with a smirk.
"I thought you said you couldn't cook?" Jim questions while titling his head.
"Yes and I stand by that statement. See?" I say as I show up my hands that are covered in barbie bandages.
"Oooo" He winces as he grabs my hands and looks at them."That has to hurt"
He inspects my hands, not realising how red my face was.
"Not really" I say nervously with a small laugh.
Jim seems to realise what he was doing and quickly let go of my hands and cleared his throat.
"I-I'm uh...gonna go in there?" He stutters while pointing to the living room.
"Y-yep, and I'll uh go in the kitchen, you know snacks" I say with a nervous laugh before we both quickly walk away.
I silently curse myself for acting so awkward and start fanning my face to make it stop heating up.
"Stop it face! Calm down!" I say and slap my face making it even more sore."Ah shit! God why am I so stupid"
I curse to myself and quickly walk over to the fridge to get some water—gulping it down quickly.
"Act casual" I tell myself as I grab the guacamole and walk into the living room to see Jim and Enrique playing, how cute.
"I hope you like guacamole. If it's not any good that's not my fault and I blame the recipe I found on google" I say with a laugh. "And Claire for not giving me her guacamole recipe"
"I'm sure it'll be great" He says with a smile, playing with Enrique at the same time.
"Wow! He really likes you." I say as I watch Enrique reach for Jim.
I put the bowl of guacamole on the table and sit down on the couch next to Jim. We both grab a chip and dip it in the guacamole.
"Cheers" We say together as we tap our chips together and eat them.
I immediately grimace.
Yeah...I can not cook.
"Mm! Oh, wow! T-this is good" Jim croaks out, awkwardly clearing his throat as he fakes a smile at me.
"Jim...are you just saying that to be nice?" I ask him with a smile.
"W-what? No! No, it's really g-good! Honest" Jim says with an awkward laugh before he notices my blank face and sighs. "Okay...i-it could use less salt..."
"Just tell me it's horrible. I also ate it Jim, it's horrible!" I say with a laugh, the boy only sadly nodding his head.
"Yeah...it's pretty bad" Jim says with an amused smile.
"It's fine. I guess you'll just have to teach me how to cook some time" I shrug as I nudge Jim's shoulder with mine.
"Y-yeah! I can do that" Jim laughs nervously.
We slowly start getting our work out and I start teaching Jim to the best of my abilities.
"See, the equation only contains powers of X that are non-negative integers. Does that make sense?" I question as I demonstrate what to do in my book.
"Is it supposed to?" Jim questions with a confused look making me laugh.
"Nah. That's why it's called algebra" I say jokingly making him smile widely at me.
"Hey, thanks again for this. I-I feel... I feel really bad about what's happening with the play. I know it means a lot to you." He say softly with a frown.
"You know, I was super mad at you, but then I realized you've got a lot more going on than people think." I say softly as I grab his hand.
"I do. I do?" He asks as he looks up at me.
"Come on, Jim. You didn't think I invited you here just for algebra, did you?" I ask with a smirk.
I close up my book and laptop and start the conversation I've been meaning to ask Jim.
"You can't just write a letter like this and not expect a conversation." I exclaim as I wave the letter around."You have to battle monsters? - Saving the world in which we know?"
I watch Jim nervously gulp which only piques my curiosity more.
"What monsters are you battling Jim?" I ask him softly.
"Umm" Jim mumbles.
"I mean, we all have stuff we've got to go through. But are you in some kind of trouble?" I question with a confused look on my face.
"I... Yeah! Metaphoric. I was in an exploring stage. Not successful." He laughs nervously.
"I think you've been getting into the Romeo and Juliet play a bit too much. Your words were beautiful Jim, and this is coming from someone who hates sappy stuff. Plus there was some really sentimental stuff at the end which I found quite sweet" I say with a soft smile as I squeeze his hand.
"Really?" Jim asks with a surprised look on his face.
"If you ever need someone to talk to about the monsters, you can talk to me. It can be our secret." I say softly to him as he squeezes my hand back.
"Uh...yeah, that would uh be great" Jim says as he quickly clears his throat. "So on problem 4?"
"Woah woah woah, I also thought I'd mention that a little bird told me someone was arrested?" I ask with a big smirk on my face.
"What? Me? Arrested? Pshh! No...." Jim says nervously before sighing at my not convinced face.
"Ok, maybe I was arrested" Jim sighs in defeat.
"Tell me everything" I say as seriously as I can making Jim chuckle and nod his head.
We ended up getting lots of work done and I honestly think I'd make a great teacher, or maybe I'm just nicer when I'm with Jim—like Claire said.
"Have you thought about telling Ms. Janeth about whatever you're going through? Maybe she'd reinstate you as Romeo if she knew about it." I ask randomly.
"Well, that could be... It's really hard to explain." Jim sighs as he rested his head on the back of the couch.
My phone suddenly started to ring making me quickly answer it.
"One sec. Hello?" I ask into the phone."Oh Toby hey! What's up?"
Toby's name immediately catching Jim's attention.
"It's for you apparently" I say as I hand Jim my phone as he quickly runs to the kitchen while speaking to Toby.
I awkwardly wait on the couch, trying to be polite and not eavesdrop.
"I have to go" Jim says as he suddenly runs to the door.
I quickly stand up confused and follow him.
"Thanks for the Guac! It was great, bye!" He says as he runs out the door, shutting it swiftly behind him leaving me standing there confused.
"The mysterious Jim lake" I mutter softly before going to go check on Enrique.
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Authors note:
This was a long chapter but only because I had so many ideas.
I have an idea for the whole powers thing so just be patient
Although i can't talk because I'm the most impatient person ever
Also I told you Y/n and Jim were awkward beans
Hope you enjoyed this chapter:)